Work sites associated with certain industries, such as the mining and construction industries, are susceptible to undesirable dust conditions. For example, work sites associated with mining, excavation, construction, landfills, and material stockpiles may be particularly susceptible to dust due to the nature of the materials composing the work site ground surface.
Work sites employ various types of drilling machines to perform drilling operations. The drilling operation is known to generate large amounts of dust, especially on encountering hard and abrasive rocks. Various dust control systems and methods have been developed for suppressing dust and controlling the amount of dust released during drilling operation. One of the methods for suppressing dust is water spraying or injecting water into the blast holes for treating work site dust conditions. For example, Chinese Patent No. 202991046U discloses a mine automatic watering and dust removal device. Particularly, 046' discloses an electric valve can be controlled to be opened and closed automatically for achieving automatic spraying of water and removing dust under an unmanned situation. Further, Chinese Patent No. 103422881A discloses an intelligent mining atomization dust settling device wherein adjustable electromagnetic valves can be used for automatically adjusting water and gas supply according to different dust concentrations, to achieve low concentration of dust.
The dust detection systems disclosed in the 046' patent and the 881' patent may however not be efficient in suppressing dust. For example, the amount of water to be sprayed cannot be efficiently determined for varying ground or operation conditions. As a result, excess water may be sprayed causing wastage or insufficient water may be sprayed resulting in poor dust control.